Four Yarmouth-Dennis pitchers combined to shut out the undefeated Brewster Whitecaps in a pivotal 3-0 win at Red Wilson Field on Saturday.
Brewster came into the day with the most momentum of any team on the Cape, sitting at 6-0 after a 14-0 thrashing of Bourne on Friday. That momentum was quickly halted by Y-D pitching that carried a no-hitter into the eighth inning on Saturday.
Brady Hamilton (Wichita State) got his second start of the season for Y-D after tossing four scoreless innings in the 4-0 victory over Orleans on June 15. He didn’t allow any free passes during his first start of the year, but he began his outing on Saturday by walking Josiah Ragsdale (Boston College) in a six-pitch battle.
After Ragsdale got into scoring position with his league-leading ninth stolen base of the year, Hamilton got three consecutive flyouts to escape the first frame unscathed.
“I came out of the gates not quite pounding the zone as much as I wanted,” Hamilton said. “But I got to the point, after talking with [Y-D Pitching Coach Michael Stanford], that today might not be the day where I have my best stuff, so I got to worry about competing more than worrying about what the stuff’s doing.”
On the Brewster side, Tennessee right-hander Teagan Kuhns was cruising in his first start of the summer. He racked up five strikeouts in the span of seven batters during the second and third innings, while allowing just one hit in three scoreless frames.
Meanwhile, Hamilton was getting the job done by pitching to contact with zero strikeouts during the first three innings. That changed in the fourth, however, when he capped off his day by striking out the side to complete four hitless innings.
“I got ahead of the hitters like I was wanting to do and just let the stuff play,” Hamilton said. “It’s always exciting to get some punchouts.”
Y-D got the leadoff hitter on in the bottom half of the fourth when Chris Hacopian (Texas A&M) hit a liner past the diving Dalton Wentz (Wake Forest) at second base. He was quickly erased, though, after Carson Tinney (Notre Dame) caught him stealing with a dart to second base. Kuhns matched Hamilton’s zero in the fourth by getting Nolan Traeger (TCU) to whiff at a fastball on the outside corner.
With the game still tied at zero, Y-D began the sixth with a pair of line-drive singles from Jake Bold (Princeton) and Brayden Dowd (USC). Hacopian came up with runners at the corners and jumped on the first pitch he saw from Camden Wimbish (NC State), crushing it 392 feet over the left field scoreboard to give Y-D a 3-0 lead.
Tyler Pitzer (Mississippi State) continued the trend of lights-out pitching for Y-D with three hitless innings of his own out of the bullpen. Dowd and AJ Soldra (UConn) made a couple of outstanding running grabs in the seventh inning to put Y-D six outs away from its first no-hitter since 2010.
“Our bullpen is sick,” Hamilton said. “They come in, they compete and they pound the zone. These guys are nasty; it’s really fun knowing that I have not only hitters backing me up, but guys coming out of the bullpen with some good stuff.”
Fittingly, Ragsdale, who leads the league in hits, was able to break up the no-hitter by grounding one down the first-base line for a double to lead off the eighth inning. As Brewster brought the tying run to the plate with two outs in the eighth, Y-D Manager Scott Pickler turned to Bo Rhudy (Tennessee) for a four-out save.
Rhudy battled with Tinney for five pitches before sneaking a fastball past him to end the eighth, letting out a yell as he went back to the dugout with the three-run lead. After allowing a leadoff hit in the ninth, Rhudy slammed the door by retiring the next three hitters to complete a 3-0 win over the top team in the league.
Following the victory, Y-D moved to 4-2-1 on the season and jumped into second place in the East Division with three consecutive wins over division opponents.
Y-D will look to extend its winning streak to four games when it hits the road to take on the Falmouth Commodores for the first time this season at 6 p.m. on Sunday.
